Don't Let Them Die
by Inkwing
Summary: What if you woke up one morning in a world where a pokemon battle is a fight to the death. Now the only thing to do is keep everyone alive long enough to escape it.
1. I Crossed When I was Sleeping

Nuzlocke Challenge One:

**Don't Let Them Die**

Last night I closed my eyes on a world that made sense but since I opened them this morning, it's been anything but.

I didn't even notice at first. What's to notice? On the surface, nothing has changed. Mom wore one of the pastel suits she always did when I came down in the morning, and filled me in on the latest Littleroot gossip while I stuffed bread into the toaster. Moving here from the big city where Dad's last Gym Leader job was, I was once surprised to find out how much everyone new about each other in the small town, but after five years here, I no longer cared. I wish I hadn't tuned her out now – I could have used some warning.

Instead, I swallowed my breakfast, practically whole, and was out the door before I'd buttoned up my jacket. Most of my class had managed to convince their parents to let them take trainer leave, so there was no way to sneak in unnoticed if you were late. I almost knocked for Brendan before I remembered he still wasn't back from field work with his dad, and jogged down the forest path to the schoolhouse to make up some time.

Either I wasn't the only tardy student, or I was faster than I thought; in less than five minutes, Conna's ridiculous blue hair came into view up ahead. I slowed immediately, snuck up until I was close enough to poke her, and took a deep breath.

"HEY CONNA! HOW ARE YOU?"

My friend shrieked and leapt a foot into the air. Her bag hit the ground splurged out a rainbow of pencils, prompting the usual tirade of swears and threats. Conna has the gift of creative cursing so I was laughing as I bent to gather her belongings. I was not, however, laughing as she took that as an opportunity to shove me headfirst into a thornbush off the side of the road.

Now it was my turn to yell, though I was more hurt than angry as I scrambled to my feet and wiping at bloody scratches.

"What the hell, Conna? This definitely counts as 'tangible damage'?"

My bad-tempered friend scowled at me, then at her shoes.

"I'm sorry, Odie. I just…I'm still pissed about my aipom. I didn't mean to hurt you."She glanced up, and I noticed there were bags under his eyes, "You okay?"

"I'm fine. What happened to Loopy?"

Her face tightened. "You know - everyone knows everything in this stupid town – and I _don't_ want to talk about it. Just get out of the bush."

I grabbed the proffered hand but stubbed my toe on something as she tugged me back up the bank to the path. Once up, I turned to see a stubby grey rock, chiselled into a jagged semi-circle sticking out of the ground.

"What is _that_?"

She glanced over and swallowed, "Looks like a grave. I swear, some people are slower than a confused slowpoke if they think the council won't notice them building this close to the road."

I backed off quickly, "Who would burry a person on the roadside?"

Conna's next words paralysed me as well as any thunder wave.

"Don't be an idiot – it's a pokemon grave." She squatted down, missing my wide-eyed expression, and yanked back a couple thorny branches to read it, "'_For Quicky, the best Ninjask ever'_. Looks like a kid's etching. Rush job."

I could see that she was aiming for nonchalance, and falling short, but didn't quite know why. I knew the answer was dancing just out of reach, like a pikachu flashing through your peripheral vision, but it wasn't until I raised my gaze to the forest and saw the row of uniform rectangle stones, and the row behind that, and the one behind that, stretching on until eaten up by the leafy gloom, that I caught it.

"Loopy's _dead_?" I gasped, unthinking, "All of these – they weren't here before – I don't understand." It was fear that brought an angry simmer to my eyes when I fixed them on her, "What's going on, Conna? How could Loopy die? Pokemon don't _die_!"

"Stop it!" She stood up suddenly, contempt scrawled across her face, "You have right to mock me! I know you're supposed to just get over it, but it's not like breaking a toy, and you have no idea, so just stop!" She whirled around, but not before I saw the tear escape her, "I'm going home."

"Wait!" I reached for her arm, but she dodged, scooped up his bag and set off the way we came with clenched fists. "You have to explain!" I glanced up the path, "And you'll miss school! What shall I tell Clements?"

"Tell her to go blow a tentacruel."

I didn't feel like laughing now. All I could do was dash the rest of the way, slip in just as the bell rang, and try to puzzle out what the hell the deal was with the pokemon graves in the forest during linear algebra.


	2. A Foot Out the Door

**A Foot Out the Door**

I don't remember a whole lot from the next few days. Most of it was spent curled up sick in bed with a fever, praying that I was hallucinating. I tried to explain that I'd fallen into some horrid parallel universe, but Mom told me it was the fever talking, and made me take sips of water until I thought I would drown and burn up all at once. Then two days ago, when I re-emerged from my house and saw the neat little line of tombstones in our front garden between the flowerbeds, I realised there wasn't any point in denying it any more.

From that moment, my goal became what it is now: escape. If you are from this world, you should know that it's a hideous place. Where I'm from, pokemon don't die in battle. Old pokemon, who have what they needed from life, and whose trainers are dead, pass out of the world like the hot breath that fades from a window when you lean away. You look somewhere else for a second – just to check the clock or grab a snack - and they're gone. We bury the pokeballs. In the wild, whatever isn't eaten vanishes the same way, most of the time, which is why pokemon fossils are so very, very rare. Here, death isn't sacred at all. I saw a pachirisu flattened on the side of the road today, eyeing me blankly, and no-one gave it a second look. I had to brush my teeth three times to get the taste of puke out of my mouth.

The similarity between worlds was useful; with a Gym Leader father, no-one would question my taking trainer leave to take the league challenge. The only obstacle was the same one that had prevented me from doing that so far back home.

"We've talked about this, honey. Not until you finish school."

"But that's what trainer leave is _for_, Mom. Loads of people graduate a year later!"

"Exactly. You'll have the upper hand that way, and anyway, I know you, Odie – you'd forget everything in that year. Not taking trainer leave was the best decision I ever made, and look what I've helped create!" She gestured to the pokeball design on my bandana, then pulled a teasing smile, "Don't you want to be like your old mom?"

I tried to laugh, but there was something in her smile that gave me the urge to tear straight out of the door and never look back.

"Can I at least get my own pokemon?"

"Tired of Rowly, are we?"

Our ancient, round sentret's bobbed up at his name before sleep reclaimed him. I sunk my fingers into his fur, feeling the steady thump of his heart as I scratched.

"We'll have to talk later, dear. My conference call starts in five."

Conna was equally useless. No matter how earnestly I gestured, she remained stretched across her bedspread, staring at the ceiling. I didn't stay long. The dead quiet that pervaded her room without Loopy's incessant chatter made my skin crawl.

My godsend waved to me when I was half-way back to dinner.

"Professor Birch! Aren't you supposed to be out until May?"

"Nice to see you too, Odette!" He chuckled at my blush, "I'll be out of your way again soon, don't worry! Brendan forgot a few pokemon at the lab and we're only just north of Oldale at the moment, so I thought I may as well pick them up myself. There's a couples other pieces as well... How's your mother?"

"She's great, thanks. How're you and Brendan doing with your, uh, project?"

"Most is quite straight forward, but we've hit a snag lately in catching low-experience pokemon up there for study since Brendan only brought his favourites, which are, of course, highly-trained. We keep accidentally killing them." He must of seen my wince, for he hastened to add, "Don't look like that – they're only voltorb, and we couldn't make a dent in the population if we tried! I wonder – are you needed somewhere now? The company of a lovely young lady would be wonderful after three weeks of my son's pokemon league prattle!"

"Sure." Dinner could wait. I was flattered that the professor wanted to talk to me, and my mind was stirring with the beginnings of a plan.

I always found Littleroot's main attraction to be a little intimidating, but standing under the lab's high metal ceilings, alone in the darkness with the professor had me straining my eyes to see and glancing over my shoulder more than ever. He'd said the lights were unnecessary, but I felt increasingly to the contrary. I was just explaining that our teacher was making a stack of all the missed homework for him to collect upon his return when the professor proved me right by barging straight into me.

"Whoops! Sorry, love." He grabbed my wrist to keep me on my feet and held it until he was sure I was stable again. I suppose the darkness made it hard to see that I stumbled badly at all; in any event, when he let go I felt a sense of relief too strong to be a delayed response to saving myself a fall. "Alright?"

"I'm fine. Thanks." Thanking him for knocking me over? Mom would be proud her manners were instilled so deeply.

"Well that's it. Can you grab my bag for me please? And check that I did toss the pokeballs in."

I looked. Four small red balls rolled lose between sheaves of paper in his brown satchel. One of them glowed with its own light dimly – an electric pokemon, perhaps?

"Which pokemon are they?"

"A sealio, torchic, golduck and…uh…typhlosion! That's it. Quite rare, but these ones hatched less than four months ago so they're pretty weak. Still, I'm pretty sure I could scare off anything on the way to Oldale myself if it came to it."

I frowned at the failure of my hypothesis, but smirked at the professor's claim. He obviously spent too much time in farther fields. I had explored every inch of the town and its surroundings, and the irritable old zigzagoon that made its nest right at the bottleneck opening of that trail could probably take on Entei if woken up. It had kept me in a tree for four and a half hours on one expedition gone wrong, before Brendan found me, laughed his lungs up and got help. Or at least, it had in my world. Did the hateful thing even exist here?

An idea – an awful, dangerous idea – hit me like a chansey's pound.

"Do you have any other pokemon on you now, professor? If you don't mind me asking."

"I've seen you grow up, Odette, you can call me Alan. And I'm not actually carrying any others at the moment, why?"

"I just wondered what kind of team a pokemon professor would build."

"You sound like Brendan! I'm not a trainer, you know; I haven't built a team. The pokemon I catch are picked for their unexplained qualities, or usefulness in catching ones who have them." He pushed the door open and gestured for me to go through first. I would have rather opened the other double door myself than be forced to squish past him and the box in his arms, but I didn't want to offend a pokemon professor. "Look, it's almost dusk! We'd better get you home before your mom starts to think badly of me – go on, quickly."

I sped up just enough to get into one of the blind spots the huge box gave him, and peeked into the bag. My palms were clammy and my heart pattered in my chest like a race dotrio's steps. Was I really going to do this? One glance at the rows of gravestones outside each house, lined up like fallen soldiers answered that. I shoved the pokeballs into my pockets and arranged the bag over the new bulge.

"Alright, I'm good from here. Thanks for the escort."

I handed him the bag, chirped a farewell and crouched behind a tall cedar the moment I rounded the corner to spy on him from between the boughs. If it happened, it would be almost immediate. If it didn't, my efforts would be rewarded with a criminal record. Regrets tickled my racing mind.

The coming dusk painted the scene a light dull orange-brown, so close to the colour of the mangy old beast's fur that I almost missed it lurching out of its burrow. No-one could miss the monstrous, bleary-eyed zigzagoon launching itself at the professor though, nor the man's shout of alarm.

"Oh, Arceus!" I couldn't hear everything, but he seemed to be shushing it, trying to edge past. It jabbed its muzzle forward and he leapt back, yelling, …see how you like…Go! Ty – where… had them … hey, give that …Back! Back you stinking piece of – " It leaped forward again, and everything from then on was abundantly clear, "HELP! SOMEONE – I'M BEING ATTACKED!"

"Professor?" I called, rounded the corner at a job after the appropriate pause, "What _is_ that?"

"My bag – it threw it over there – get a pokemon!"

I darted through the tall grass to where he pointed, not letting his cranky attacker out of my sight as I did so, and rummaged around in it for a moment, slipping the pokeballs back in as I did.

"Which one?"

"Any, just get it off, for Arceus' sake!"

I looked from one to the other, reviewing the options. Typhlosion would be the best, and with no training required, but how to tell which ball held it? I held one up to my ear and heard a soft growl, but then my eyes fell on the luminescent pokeball. I was fairly sure the warm pokeball at my ear was the typhlosion, yet, I saw, rather than controlled my hand as it swept up the glowing pokeball and threw it into the air in one smooth arc of motion.

A golduck burst onto the scene in a flash of royal blue light. I pointed at the zigzagoon with a command to use water gun. It hissed and scratched three deep scores into the earth.

"It's untrained, you idiot! Use scratch! Plaster, SCRATCH!"

The pokemon's head swivelled toward me with eager eyes and I nodded, "Scratch."

It threw itself forward in a blur of gleaming silver claws and I blanched when they tore into the zigzagoon's back, sending blood splattering across the clearing. The victim whirled around with a thick growl and headbutted my pokemon into the long grass but it leapt straight back up for a follow-up attack. My instruction to do so was barely a whisper; I'm surprised it heard at all. Two of those ferocious scratches would surely have split open the zigzagoon, and my golduck seemed to sense this, because its swing was smaller this time, though still enough to have the mangy beast scuttling away. Professor Birch lobbed a stone at its fleeing form.

"You should have just finished it. That thing's a menace." He huffed, sitting down heavily.

The golduck and I exchanged glances, and it hit me that it had won my my first pokemon battle. The golduck made a sleek, strong figure, in the twilight beside me, full of hard edges and steely glints from its eyes and claws. The light from the retreating sun gave its rubbery blue skin a strange sheen, almost as if it itself emitted a small brilliance. I wondered how I could have wanted the typhlosion.

"Good girl, Plaster. Back in the ball now." He indicated for me to return it, and I did, with reluctance, in spite of her glare.

"How can you have a golduck that can't use water gun?" I burst out, heart still pumping fast, "It's evolved – it's meant to be strong!"

He shook his head, "And you have a Gym Leader for a father. Pokemon can evolve at any time in the wild. The pokeball technology used when you catch them screws a lot of stuff up – no offense to your mother - and one of those things is that they need a certain amount of experience in order to learn moves and evolve. It's the price we pay for adapting them to being able to shrink them, transport them, use TM disks on them…it really is late now though, so ask your parents sometime."

"What's going to happen to Plaster? And why is she called that?"

"It gets into a lot of fights – we bring it in for so many plaster casts that it started responding to it. Silly thing thinks it's its name. It's good in a scrap for its age though; might even make it through the field trip." Held his hand out for the bag and pokeball.

"Give her to me. Please." I stepped closer, "I have some money, or I could help you with your field work, maybe? You said she's weak anyway."

"I don't think…" He started, then hesitated, eyeing me up and down. I wished I hadn't stepped forward, "You know, that may not be such a bad idea. You obviously could use a little experience with pokemon yourself. Do you know what a pokedex is?"

I nodded, tightening my grip on the golduck's pokeball.

"Well they have to be constantly updated by encountering and battling different types of pokemon, and assistants cost money, so if you're willing to work for free in exchange for the golduck, we could make a deal. What would your mom say?"

Of course, her first answer was a resounding 'no', but with the professor on my side, explaining that it wasn't dangerous, that I would only be covering the road up to Petalburg, that the pokedex had a GPS tracker and that I would be making regular reports, she loosened, bit by bit. I wouldn't be taking trainer leave, and I wasn't to challenge any other trainers, but a little hands-on experience with pokemon wouldn't hurt since they were so integral to life.

That's how I managed to leave two days later, promising to be careful, to be back in two weeks and to visit Dad while I was up there to give him a letter she'd pushed into my hands on the way out the door with an air of relief. I had two weeks to disappear from the face of this Earth. I didn't say goodbye to anyone else; they're not the same people I've shared the past three years with.

**TEAM: **1

**BODY COUNT: **0


End file.
